Caste in India: The Facts and the System c8.s7.19

c8.s7.19

Even confining ourselves to the period of formation, it would be satisfactory to be able to fix the dates. What I have said about literary tradition will explain why I have nothing precise to offer. Ancient institutions are only imbued with a new spirit by imperceptible degrees; movements which may, according to circumstances, take place at different rates in various regions, only become visible when the earlier order has grown completely unrecognizable. They are obscure because they are slow; we cannot attribute exact dates to them. At most we might flatter ourselves that we had determined the moment when the Brahmanic system, which theoretically governed the caste, received its final form. The claim would still be too ambitious. But we may take comfort from the fact that it would not leave us much better off if it is true that this system rather sums up the ideal of the dominant caste than reflects the true situation.